HRI Columnists

HRI Selections

HRI Featured Bloggers

Indulto

"Players Up" blogger Indulto is a retired computer programming residing in SoCal and has been betting Thoroughbreds since the days of Kelso, cashing his first ticket at Saratoga while in college.

Indulto is well known in racing's cyber world as a participant on the Ragozin Sheets message board, the PaceAdvantage Forum, Paulick Report, and has made important contributions to the industry's audience as an HRI Readers Blog contributor.

Indulto was active in the formation of the Horseplayers Association of North America and with former HANA colleagues worked on the Players' Boycott of California racing when takeout rates were increased by the legislature there.

Taking his nickname from the King Ranch color-bearer of the 1960s, Indulto now devotes his time to advocate for the recreational player and hobbyist, but prefers lower takeout rates for all rather than subsidized rebates for the few.

Indulto supports the creation of a centralized racing authority to establish uniform rules for racing and wagering and for those standards to be enforced consistently.

Syndicate

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

LOS ANGELES, March 16, 2014—A New York State Gambling Commission press release proved that when horseplayers get “mad as hell,” they can spur reform in thoroughbred racing:

Stated the release: “At its March 12 meeting, Commissioner John A. Crotty noted that there had been considerable controversy surrounding the disqualification of a winning horse at Gulfstream Park on February 22 in the last leg of the Rainbow Six wager…

“The disqualification led to rampant allegations of collusion which brought into question the integrity of the decision.”

“Commissioner Crotty’s notion that we can do even more to demonstrate to the public that New York’s pari-mutuel racing is open, honest and fair is right on target,” said Commission Chairman Mark D. Gearan.

The preceding came on the heels of a similar one by Gulfstream Park in response to the groundswell of frustration and criticism expressed by racing fans in social media and on discussion forums. Gulfstream CEO Tim Ritvo said that any additional changes “will be based on what is best for our bettors” and “if these changes work at Gulfstream, we will roll them out across all Stronach Group tracks.”

The commission also said that it supports the development of “uniform rules to govern disqualifications” and will “reach out to the … Racing Fan Advisory Council and to the wagering public … for further recommendations on how to best increase transparency and public confidence.”

All this is very good news indeed, but the best part is that it demonstrates the power that horseplayers can wield collectively when properly motivated.

The question now is: How do we build on this?

One critical aspect was that turf writers reacted as strongly as recognized activists. Another was that social media facilitated expression and distribution of horseplayer emotion. It wasn’t just a “bad beat” for one bettor. Every race on which people bet their money is important.

The bad news is that foul adjudication might have diverted focus from ever-present takeout concerns. It is commendable that Commissioner Crotty was pro-active. Hopefully, the pursuit of transparency will shine more light on the issue of excessive takeout. Lowering takeout effectively rebates all, not just high-volume bettors.

Increased fairness could be further promoted in New York by no longer restricting participation at Fan Advisory Council meetings to those able and willing to attend on-track or at other locations that are at best inconvenient, if not impossible.

NYRA’s customers make up 20% of total national handle and not all of them live in New York. These FAC meetings should be held on-line with feedback from the nation’s bettors and ideally need to be interactive in real time.

These public sessions can be conducted on dark-days with agenda set and thoughtful questions from concerned players submitted in advance.

Real dialogue in real time. What a concept.

The sad reality, however, is that the discussions likely will continue to be limited to New Yorkers, the issues filtered through state appointees. Given that, how would contributors know whether their input was considered constructive, if at all, and what priorities were addressed? There needs to be an interactive process that’s timely, meaningful and truly transparent.

What if these meetings were conducted on-line and hosted by horseplayers from a newly created National Horseplayers Organization, or through the auspices of the existing Horseplayers Association of North America?

A respected panel of horseplayers could set the agenda and publicly invite industry organizations involved with the issues being addressed, with an implied obligation to show up and relate just how the industry’s “best practices” deals with a particular concern.

In a public online forum, industry groups; tracks, horsemen, NTRA, etc., etc., would have a public responsibility to participate or risk being exposed as disingenuous or obtuse. Betting handle, or lack of same, provides horseplayers with leverage here.

The vehicle that would enable horseplayers to speak with a single voice cannot be operated on a voluntary basis. Even horseplayers have lives, but should be prepared to be as committed in the same way demands are made of the industry.

We have just witnessed what can be accomplished by serendipitous player discontent. Should we be satisfied with that, or encouraged that further organized action will result in horseplayers becoming an influential force whose common concerns no longer can be ignored? More progress needs to be made.

Whether the issue is standardized medication rules, optimal takeout rates, or consistent foul claim adjudication, a level playing field must be created for all--by all. If not, how can the game possibly grow? How much entertainment and increased betting handle can be generated by a participatory sport that institutionally tilts the game against horseplayers, professional and novice alike?

Establishing a level playing field probably would require an interim board comprised of prominent and trusted horseplayer/communicators with the advocacy credentials of an Andy Beyer, Steven Crist, Len Friedman, Barry Meadow, John Pricci, or others of similar stature.

How do we motivate these individuals to get involved? Perhaps enthusiastic endorsements of those willing to step forward via an on-line petition could get the dialogue started. It might require a pledge drive to pay any individual for his time and expertise.

As opposed to those on handicapping and wagering, think of a player advocacy panel as a seminar on the best ways to increase collective horseplayer influence by nationally recognized advocates.

I would gladly pay a nominal amount, say $25 in yearly dues, to get a national horseplayers organization off the ground. The question is how many other horseplayers care enough to do the same?

“Establishing a level playing field probably would require an interim board comprised of prominent and trusted horseplayer/communicators with the advocacy credentials of an Andy Beyer, Steven Crist, Len Friedman, Barry Meadow, John Pricci, or others of similar stature.”

Members of such a board could not have ties to large financial organizations associated with horse racing, for obvious reasons. Many such persons, although creating the illusion that they are horseplayer advocates, are advocates of their organization, and their wallets. They would have to be elected by the members, and before the election, should memorialize their views on the most salient topics facing horse racing today.

John Pricci gets my vote, you get my vote, Nick Kling gets my vote, Andy Asaro gets my vote; not because they agree with my viewpoints in all things horse racing; because they are man enough to memorialize their viewpoints on forums such as this for all to see.

Have I got it right? Thoroughbred racing’s continuous decline is the result of the playing field not being level? If things were perfect: takeout at 10%, all drugs banned, all stewards had to go to a school for training, all races had ten and twelve horse fields, all artificial surface tracks were eliminated, et cetera, attendance would increase, casino dole would be forsaken, and Thoroughbred racing would once again be a popular destination? Do you really think so? Do you believe that newbies and very casual bettors stay away from ‘the game’ because of takeout, stewards decisions, and small fields?

Clear to me that other gamble venues are more popular, thus racing’s decline. Clear to me that Thoroughbred’s inability to promote itself as an alternative to other forms of gambling is the sole reason it is almost out of business, kept alive by casino dole.

Advisory boards, promotion of a few thoroughbreds, and stake races won by Pletcher and Baffert haven’t yet and won’t achieve a damn thing, especially when the stake winners are favorites.

I appreciate it Teddy but after recent events I’ve realized that you can’t deal with people who lie and mislead on a regular basis without blinking an eye. And unfortunately those are the types of people calling the shots right now. People in the industry who I thought were friends and wouldn’t lie recently did so in the worst way after 6 months of hard work. Many of these people don’t think twice about agreeing with you in a meeting but then doing the opposite weeks later. Politics rule.

The only thing these people understand is losing revenue and any boycott would have to reach a 30% drop in handle or more for changes to occur..... and things would change quickly. Not enough people seem to care for that to happen right now.

I could write forever on this topic. The problem with me is that I get so pissed off I doubt I could stomach another meeting. I’ve never blown my stack in a meeting but if you’ve read my emails lately you know that I need to back off and stop wasting my time. How exactly can CHRB Commissioners invite us to a meeting have an analysis done, and then hide it when it comes out? If it reflected well on Santa Anita then they would have made it public. The worst part is that I worked with these people on the P5 that helped them save their meet back in 2011. I backed Jack Liebau through thick and thin for the last few years and as far as back stabbings go in my life this one ranks right up there. With what I know now if I could go back in time I would have kept my mouth shut and let them burn.

One thing people need to understand (and it’s not easy unless you’ve been through it)just because you go to a meeting with a great idea backed up by facts doesn’t mean they’ll listen or even respect you. The best example of that is when Jeff Platt and Barry Meadow went to the CHRB meeting back in 2010 over the Los Alamitos takeout hike.

I would say that there are a lot more people in the industry (some execs) out there who want changes made but are afraid to lose their jobs by pissing of the wrong group or person who can make things difficult for them.

“Do you believe that newbies and very casual bettors stay away from ‘the game’ because of takeout, stewards decisions, and small fields?”

Taking what you say as true - a good gamble has no effect on new entrants into the game - most players are not talking about that with those metrics.

It’s about getting someone who played $20,000 a year back, who left because of 22% blended takeouts, small fields and bad judging. It’s about getting Joe from Brooklyn who goes once a week for entertainment, going three times a week. It’s about get a $200k player to play a million.

As a truism, I submit that newbies will never be attracted to horse racing as a gambling game, if at first existing players cannot be induced to bet more. The gambling game needs fixing brick by brick, in my opinion.

It’s pretty clear to me now that HANA has an important role to play. They have become the Industry Library when it comes to valuable information for anyone wanting to learn about the gambling part of the game. As far as boycotting goes I’m up for it if enough people show interest. I guess it would take them messing with the 14% takeout P5 in California to get people pissed off enough.

Maybe it’s not a matter of a new group just a new focus on things we agree on rather than things we don’t. Followed up by action of course.

TTT,
The idea here is to find the common ground that has eluded us in the past. Do we have to wait for another industry weakness to be exposed unexpectedly to make progress, or can we assume responsibility as stakeholders, and ensure the game is a fair one for those attracted by its challenge?

We need to establish a confirmed consensus among a demonstrably large subset of bettors as to what a fair game is, and be willing to support accountable representatives in negotiations to get it implemented.

I believe that a handful of long-term horseplaying lumenaries such as those mentioned above who have enlightened bettors, enhanced their experiences, and earned their trust over the years, could bring them together for that purpose.

Here’s an idea you might want to consider in your boycott. I think you have to single out ONE track and pick one day to crush them via boycott. If you just give bettors a general feeling to boycott racing in general, all the tracks might see a small decline, but nobody would take a really big hit, it wouldnt be as noticible if you picked one track out at random and got everyone to just not bet that one track for one day, that way, if horsebettors can’t possibly bear the idea of not betting for one day, they certainly can skip one day of betting at 1 track, while betting all the others.

You know, in a perfect world, people would listen to your idea and just not bet for a day, but for those who just have to gamble on horse races, at least you give them a shot to still bet while contributing to the downfall of one track on one day.

There’s another recent example of concerted protests from media and fans producing a positive result. NYRA has backed off its plan to raise admission prices at Belmont, although it will cost more to get into Saratoga this summer. Maybe that should be the next project.

Know this will be a minority viewpoint, but here goes. When the simulcast era started, the on-track revenue for entry fee was lost, along with having to share a portion of the take with the middle man. The dynamic completely changed. Trying to recoup that lost revenue through higher takeout is wrong. Should not mix apples with oranges. However, think that third-party organizations who are taking wagers should charge persons, say, a one-time $2.00 flat fee to wager at a particular track for the day, and that money should go directly to the track. The racetrack is putting on the show, and allowing persons to wager without being there. It’s O.K. to tell me I’m crazy. I want out industry to suceed.

Kyle,
Great idea. But how many people do you think would participate?
The baseball players union is said to be the strongest in sports, if not all organized labor. The reason: they stick together no matter how painful.
The football players union is a joke. The players take part in the most physically debilitating sport but it is the only major sport in which a contract is not guaranteed. Why: because when they struck, many lost their nerve and will power after a few weeks and started to give up.
Unfortunately, I think everyone knows which union horse players are more like.

Well, you’ve got like two and half entrances so you only need about 10 people. Could always do what the “real” unions do and hire some day labor. And you need a spokesperson. Someone to explain the trajectory of slots in other jurisdictions where they did nothing to make the racing product more attractive from a gambling standpoint and how that is anathema to NYRA’s goal of making its racing successful as a stand alone.

After Day 1 of floating the idea of a National No Betting for One Day protest ...........

It seems like there are a quite a few people who would consider NOT BETTING FOR ONE DAY and are interested in hearing more about it. More than I expected on day one of floating the idea.

It’s the kind of thing that no one person and no one group can or should lead. It has to be EVERYONE and EVERY GROUP interested in NOT BETTING FOR ONE DAY sometime near the end of April. I have been contacted by a few respected Journalists who are willing to write about it to help spread the word.

It will be a “pick your reason” for NOT BETTING and not just the most recent Asmussen/Blasi/Peta video. I’d imagine that we could list several reasons to NOT BET including but not limited to the Asmussen/Blasi/Peta video, Conflicts of interest like Stewards who are employees of the tracks (like Gulfstream), Inaccurate timing of races, high takeout, outdated breakage (Pay us what he really have coming), reliable procedures to stop overuse of therapeutic medications, reliable procedures to stop overuse of shockwave therapy especially close to race days, ……………………………….. Those are just some reasons to NOT BET. It will be a multiple choice and/or all of the above depending on the Individual who decides NOT TO BET for one day.

The power is and always has been with the Customer and maybe it’s time to prove it by NOT BETTING FOR ONE DAY.

More to come,

Andy

Joe Drape and 24 others retweeted you
17h:
#nobettingforoneday Retweet if you’re interested in not betting for one day to protest the big problems in Horse Racing.

Phil ‏@InsideTheNumbrs
@racetrackandy @billdownes1 I’m with Andy. Wake up call req’d. As Superman said in DK2, “The power is ours. The power has always been ours.”
Andy Asaro ‏@racetrackandy 10h
@InsideTheNumbrs @billdownes1 The power has always been ours is exactly right.

Off the top, think stillriledup is correct when he suggests that even if there were large support to stop betting everywhere, the results would be less dramatic since not ALL bettors would participate.

If one track were selected, however, and handle fell by an extremely high percentage, that would state the case more clearly in my view and would demonstrate to the industry that horseplayers have clout in sheer numbers.

Then you have people who are loyal to that jurisdiction that are offended that they are being singled out. A 25% reduction in handle for the day would be huge. Since I normally bet So. Cal they will not get my money on that day. For someone else it will be N.Y. or Florida.

All we have to agree on is the date. They everyone can NOT BET for whatever reason they choose IMO

A one-day event would make the desired point but as long as it was billed as that, racing’s powers-that-be would shrug it off.
It would have to be something like the first Saturday or Sunday of each month. That would give the sport’s rulers time to digest the protest and take action to discourage it from happening again.
It also would allow for momentum to keep building.

AA (#24),
If I remember correctly, SRU’s point was the one we at playersboycott.org made continuously during the boycott in response to those who complained Calif. was being singled out. Those who made that argument were, more often than not, simply trying to discredit us, and preferred to ignore the fact that limited resources had to be concentrated to be effective.

That is why my position now is to establish confirmable strength in numbers ahead of time as well as a confirmable consensus among those purported to be represented.

I have a question about “racing fans” getting involved in making “change”. How come you, as a fan, feel the need to stop betting for one day, or be proactive in a change in the culture of the sport...why can’t the SPORT itself, the major owners/operators like Stronach, CD Inc, NYRA, etc do the work and clean up their own mess? Why do the CUSTOMERS feel the need to do this?

If you are just a customer of horse racing and you think you have a few good ideas to help the tracks with some ideas and they know of the ideas and refuse to make those changes, why do you (we) care? Either the racing product is worth betting on or its not, right?

Major track operators have certainly heard the voices of some fans loud and clear, they all know about the Asmussen/Blasi situation too. So now, its up to them to make the changes they know they need to make. They’re either going to make them, or they’re just going to keep the status quo and let this all blow over and not change a thing.

Either way, its up to THEM to make the change, if they dont make a change they’re essentially saying “take us or leave us” so its up to you, the horseplayer to take them as they are, or leave them.

If you went to a restaurant and ate a bad dinner, you would just not return....but you wouldnt stand in front of the restaurant with a pickit sign, right? You would just find another restaurant OR you would stop going to restaurants and cook at home but you probably wouldnt contact that restaurant with a laundry list of suggestions to help them.

Why the need to boycott the industry when you can just leave the sport altogether? A boycott is actually trying to give the industry a 2nd chance, you’re saying “i hate what you’re doing, but i love you so much i’m willing to make a statement (not bet for one day) but then i’ll be back the very next day.

If the industry knows “you’ll be back” what incentive do they have to change anything?

Maybe its better off for us, the bettors, to either take them or leave them, but stop wasting our time trying to CHANGE them.

* Prior commenting issues should now be resolved

Name:

Email:

Location:

Notify me of follow-up comments?

*** HorseRaceInsider will delete any comment that engages in personal attacks directed at anyone, uses foul language, or one made by an imposter using another’s name to express an opinion or comment.

HRI will not, however, edit or discourage those who, with intellectual honesty, disagree with HRI staffers or other readers. We also will not, as is done on some racing sites, edit disagreeable or negative commentary in the interests of commerce.